Word.ws English Dictionary

buoy

/ˈbɔɪ/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

British/ˈboj/

buoy noun: a float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes.

Noun

buoy (plural buoys)

  1. A float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes
    • While comm buoys allow rapid transmission, there is a finite amount of bandwidth available. Given that trillions of people may be trying to pass a message through a given buoy at any one time, access to the network is parceled out on priority tiers.2008, BioWare, Mass Effect, Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →ISBN, →OCLC, PC, scene: Communications: Administration Codex entry
    • Texas began deploying chains of specially designed buoys down the middle of the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass to deter migrants from crossing illegally in June 2023, sparking protests from migrant activists and from the Mexican government.2024 July 30, Kayla Guo, “Texas’ floating barrier in the Rio Grande can stay for now, appeals court says”, in The Texas Tribune
    1. A lifebuoy; a life preserver.
  2. (sign language) A sign where the non-dominant hand is held in a stationary configuration as a landmark for meaning associations with the dominant hand.
    • list buoy

Verb

buoy (third-person singular simple present buoys, present participle buoying, simple past and past participle buoyed)

  1. (transitive) To keep afloat or aloft; used with up.
  2. (transitive) To support or maintain at a high level.
    • “My Heart Will Go On” debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on Feb. 28, 1998, buoying the Titanic soundtrack’s 16-week run atop the Billboard 200.2017 May 18, Mickey Rapkin, “The Oral History of Celine Dion’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’: Controversies, Doubts & ‘Belly Pains’ In the Studio”, in Billboard
  3. (transitive) To mark with a buoy.
    • to buoy an anchor; to buoy or buoy off a channel
    • Not one rock near the surface was discovered which was not buoyed by this floating weed.1839, Charles Darwin, chapter XIII, in Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty’s Ships Adventure and Beagle, between the Years 1826 and 1836, […], volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […]...
  4. To maintain or enhance enthusiasm or confidence; to lift the spirits of.
    • Buoyed by the huge success, they announced two other projects.
    • This dynamic stage of the ongoing struggle for long-denied democratic rights and national liberation helped inspire and buoy many in the U.S. and around the world who longed for social and economic justice.2006 February 12, Leslie Feinberg, “Black movement raised hopes of all downtrodden”, in Workers World

buoy meaning in Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Gujarati

buoy in Tamil

மிதவை

buoy in Malayalam

float, marker, beacon
പൊങ്ങ്, പൊന്ത്, പൊങ്ങത്തി, തരത്ത്, പൊങ്ങുതടി, തരിക
hearten, cheer (up), rally
ഉത്സാഹമുണ്ടാക്കുക, ഉന്മേഷംനല്കുക, ധെെര്യപ്പെടുത്തുക, സമാശ്വസിപ്പിക്കുക, ധെെര്യവുംശക്തിയും വീകെടുക്കുക, ഉയർത്തുക

buoy in Kannada

ತೇಲುಬುರುಡೆ, ಮೇಲೆತ್ತು, ಉತ್ಸಾಹಗೊಳಿಸು, ಭರವಸೆತುಂಬು, ಉತ್ತೇಜಿಸು

buoy in Gujarati

buoy
બોયું boyũ
More languagesFewer languages
buoy in Tagalog
palutang
buoy in Arabic
شَمَنْدُورَة šamandūra, عَوَّامَة ʕawwāma
buoy in Malay
pelampung
buoy in Persian
بویه boye, شناور ماندن šenâvar mândan
buoy in Vietnamese
phao

Examples of buoy in a sentence

  • If we stay on this course we should clear the buoy.
  • The region's economy is buoyed by tourism driven by past apparitions of the Virgin Mary.
  • The buoy bobbed between the crests and troughs of the waves moving across the bay.

All 40 example sentences with buoy

Forms of buoy

Noun
pluralbuoys
Verb
third-person singular presentbuoys
present participlebuoying
past participlebuoyed
pastbuoyed

Past tense of buoy: buoyed

Plural of buoy: buoys

Origin of buoy

From Middle English boy, boye, from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, buoy”), from Old French boue (“piece of wood or cork that floats above an anchor to indicate where it is anchored”) (modern French bouée), ultimately from Frankish *baukn (“beacon”), from Proto-Germanic *baukną. Doublet of beacon. Alternatively, and perhaps less likely (due to the unexplained shift in meaning), from Middle Dutch boeye (“shackle, fetter”), from Old French buie (“fetter, chain”), from Latin boia (“a (leather) collar, band, fetter”), from Ancient Greek βόεος (bóeos), βόειος (bóeios, “of ox-hide”), from βοῦς (boûs, “ox”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws (“cow”). Noun sense 2 was coined by American linguist Scott K. Lindell in 2003.

Words formed from buoy

Phrases with buoy

Words that rhyme with buoy

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about buoy

What does buoy mean?
Buoy means a float moored in water to mark a location, warn of danger, indicate a navigational channel or for other purposes.
What is buoy in Tamil?
Buoy in Tamil is மிதவை. See Buoy meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is buoy?
Buoy can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce buoy?
Buoy is pronounced /ˈbɔɪ/ (UK).
What is the plural of buoy?
The plural of buoy is buoys.

Words near buoy in the dictionary

  1. Buonocores
  2. Buonomo
  3. Buonomos
  4. Buonos
  5. Buot-Taup Pardo
  6. buoy
  7. buoy rope
  8. buoy ropes
  9. buoy tender
  10. buoy tenders
  11. buoy up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buoy (page history and authors); buoy (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); buoy (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); buoy (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); બોયું (Gujarati) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-buoy.wav.

Cite this entry: “buoy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buoy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.